The Obidient Movement has described Saturday's by-elections as cash and carry, lamenting that many Nigerians still sell their votes to the highest bidder, while somehow expecting good governance in return.

"Once again, our democracy was reduced to a cash-and-carry affair... an open market where stolen public wealth is freely deployed to buy silence and compromise the will of the people," the National Coordinator, Yanusa Tanko said in a statement.

Calling for an end to the shameful cycle, he said elections are not supposed to be an auction block for politicians who loot our national treasury.

He said until we collectively say no to vote selling and buying with demand for accountability, those who plunder our commonwealth will continue to rule us without fear of reprimand.

"It is important to note that Peter Obi will always say that those who buy votes are only buying their way to the treasury to steal public money. They are not better than the killers, armed robbers and kidnappers because they are doing the same thing in different ways.

"And those who sell are selling the schools their children should have gone to, and the hospitals that will take care of them and their families, and the roads that would have worked for their access, because those who buy the vote are only buying it to make a profit from the seat.

"The message is clear: we are mortgaging the future of the children living with NO JOBs and HUNGER in the land. If we keep trading our votes for peanuts, we will have no country to call our own," Tanko said.

ASA